He's arguing that ideas have power. As long as people believe in the state as something worth having, they will work to maintain a state apparatus. At the very least, they will obey laws. When they give the state up as hopeless and useless, its ability to survive is threatened.

One example of this is the collapse of the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc. The second most powerful nation on Earth simply fell apart, with remarkably little violence for a change so huge.

Another example may be the US, where the current administration appears to dismantling the federal government.